An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for allegedly kidnapping an Egyptian terrorism suspect in Milan two years ago and flying him to Egypt for questioning, judicial sources said on Friday.
The foreigners “linked to the CIA” seized imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, on a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003, Milan-based judge Chiara Nobili said in the arrest warrants issued on Thursday, sources told Reuters.
Nasr was taken to a U.S. base in Aviano and flown home for questioning, the sources added.
The nationalities of the foreigners were not clear.
“We know some of the identities of these (suspects) with certainty, but with others we are not sure of their true identity,” one source said.
Suspects no longer in Italy
No one has been arrested so far, and the suspects are no longer in Italy, the sources said.
Secret transfers of suspects to foreign states for interrogation are an acknowledged tool of the United States in its war on terrorism, but it denies charges that the practice — known as rendition — amounts to outsourcing torture.
The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported Friday that a former U.S. consul to Milan was among those ordered arrested.
Il Gorno, another Italian daily, reported that Italian investigators traced the agents through check-in details at Milan hotels and their use of Italian cell phones during the operation. All the agents are American and include three women, the paper reported.
The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined to comment.
Italy was investigating imam
Foreign intelligence officials believe Nasr, 42, had fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia before arriving in Italy in 1997 and obtaining political refugee status. When he disappeared, he was under investigation in Italy for suspected ties to terrorism.
His current whereabouts are unknown. About a year after he vanished, he made two telephone calls in which he said he had been sent to the Egyptian city of Alexandria, according to court documents.
Last month another judge said in a court document that “people belonging to foreign intelligence networks” had arrested Nasr.
Although he did not identify those responsible, the judge said Nasr had been “taken to an American base, interrogated and beaten and taken the next day on board a U.S. military plane” to Egypt.
